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{{short description|Kashmiri poet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Madhosh Balhami
| image = Madhosh Balhami.jpg
| caption =
| birth_name = Ghulam Mohammad Bhat
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1966}}
| birth_place = [[Srinagar]], Kashmir
| death_date =
| death_place =
| resting_place =
| pseudonym = Madhosh Balhami
| occupation = Poet
| spouse =
| children = 3
| relatives =
| signature =
| notableworks = Sadaye Abu Zar, Dard-e-Furqat
}}

'''Ghulam Mohammad Bhat''' (born 1966), known by his [[pen name]] '''Madhosh Balhami''', is a [[Kashmiris|Kashmiri]] poet.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=29 March 2020|title=Poet of the Fall: The humane verses of Kashmir's Madhosh Balhami|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/poet-of-the-fall-kashmir-madhosh-balhami-6334080/|access-date=24 July 2020|website=The Indian Express|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> He started writing poetry following the deaths of his parents, and soon turned to natural, spiritual, and political themes.<ref name=":0" />He is often called "The Poet of Resistance".He is particularly known for his recitation of [[Elegy|elegies]] composed for the funerals of [[Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir|militants in Kashmir]].<ref name=":4" /> On 15 March 2018, Madhosh Balhami lost his house and thirty years of written poetry to a fire in the middle of a gun battle between Indian soldiers and Rebels.<ref name=inverse/>

In 2020, a seven-episode documentary series about his life and poetry, ''Madhosh Balhami: The Poet of Perseverance'', was released on [[YouTube]] by [[Delhi]]-based filmmakers Mohammad Irfan Dar and Mohammad Gowhar Farooq.<ref name=inverse>{{Cite web |title=Madhosh Balhami: The Poet of Perseverance (Documentary Series) — by Irfan Dar and Gowhar Farooq|url=https://www.inversejournal.com/2020/05/04/madhosh-balhami-the-poet-of-perseverance-episode-1-by-mohammad-irfan-dar-and-mohammad-gowhar-farooq/|access-date=24 July 2020|website=www.inversejournal.com|date=4 May 2020 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Madhosh Balhami: The Poet of Perseverance {{!}} Episode 1 - YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A3HdrdkfzE|access-date=24 July 2020|website=www.youtube.com| date=14 February 2020 }}</ref>

== Early life ==
Balhami grew up in [[Srinagar]] and lives close by in a village named Balhama.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|date=17 March 2018|title=For Kashmiris like Madhosh Balhami, there's no escape from conflict, as counter-insurgency ops bring violence to their doors|url=https://www.firstpost.com/india/for-kashmiris-like-madhosh-balhami-theres-no-escape-from-conflict-as-counter-insurgency-ops-bring-violence-to-their-doors-4394375.html|access-date=24 July 2020|website=Firstpost}}</ref> His father, an illiterate saffron farmer, died in 1981 when he was in college, and his mother followed him a few years later.<ref name=":0" /> He read the poetry of 19th and 20th century [[Urdu poetry|Urdu poets]] [[Ghalib|Mirza Ghalib]], [[Muhammad Iqbal]], [[Faiz Ahmad Faiz]], and [[Shamas Faqir]] in school.<ref name=":0" /> Balhami took to poetry with the grief of his parents' passing.<ref name=":0" /> In addition to poetry, he wrote for newspapers and played the [[Pump organ|harmonium]], [[Rubab (instrument)|rubab]], and [[sarangi]] at [[bhajan]]s at the village's [[Bala Devi]] temple.<ref name=":0" />

== Personal life ==
Madhosh Balhami married in 1983 and is the father of three: two sons and a daughter.<ref name=":4" /> His primary income comes from cultivating [[saffron]], but he has also worked as a press secretary for Agha Syed Hassan, a political leader in the [[All Parties Hurriyat Conference|Hurriyat Conference]].<ref name=":4" /> He is a [[Shia Islam|Shia]] Muslim.<ref name=":4" />

== Poetry ==

=== Poetic practice ===
He grew from writing poetry inspired by love and grief to poems of "spring and summer, spirituality, religion, women’s role in Kashmir’s past, Kashmir and resistance, and the realisation of the importance of human lives and humanity".<ref name=":0" />

He became known in his area as a poet after reciting a long ode praising [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]]'s leadership skills at the protests following his [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto#Death sentence and appeal|killing]] by [[Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq|Zia-ul-Haq]] in 1979.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|date=10 June 2018|title=A Poetic Struggle|url=https://kashmirlife.net/a-poetic-struggle-issue-10-vol-10-177011/|access-date=24 July 2020|website=Kashmir Life|language=en-GB}}</ref> As clashes between militants and the Indian government intensified in the 1990s, he would be called to recite elegies for slain militants.<ref name=":0" /> His first elegy was for [[Hizbul Mujahideen|Hizb-ul-Mujahideen]] commander Akhtar Abdul Rehman's ''chaharum'' (the fourth day after death).<ref name=":4" /> He recited his poem at Rehman's house in the presence of mourners.<ref name=":4" /> He eventually wrote elegies for militants in [[Shopian district|Shopian]], [[Pulwama district|Pulawama]], Pantha Chowk, Khanmoh, [[Pampore]] and elsewhere.<ref name=":4" /> In response to the growing number of militant deaths, sometimes reaching thirty deaths a day, he wrote a poem dedicated to militants as a group.<ref name=":4" /> Written from the perspective of a victim's mother, it became "a sort of martyr's anthem", and was sung by at militant funerals.<ref name=":4" /> That poem made Balhami a household name, especially in south Kashmir.<ref name=":4" />

After his imprisonment and torture by the Indian army in 1991, he ceased visiting militant funerals and houses to read elegies and focused on writing poetry on religion, tolerance, and spirituality, though he'd still obliquely reference those involved in the conflict.<ref name=":4" /> Part of this turn was fear of reprisal by a government-backed renegade, Ghulam Mohammad Lone (or Papa Kistwari), who lived nearby.<ref name=":4" />

In his 30-year poetic practice, he has refused state patronage, choosing not to be co-opted.<ref name=":1" /> He published two books of poetry ''Sadaye Abu Zar'' and ''Dard-e-Furqat'' in the 2000s.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Fire in paradise: Kashmiri poet Madhosh Balhami's 30-year labour of love turns to ashes|url=https://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2018/mar/25/fire-in-paradise-kashmiri-poet-madhosh-balhamis-30-year-labour-of-love-turns-to-ashes-1792033.html|access-date=24 July 2020|website=The New Indian Express|date=25 March 2018 }}</ref>

=== Loss of his poetry ===
On 15 March 2018, his house built by his father in 1967 burned down in a clash between three militants and the government.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Citation|title=Madhosh Balhami: The Poet of Perseverance {{!}} NewsClick|date=20 February 2020|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug2ebkdWUSk|language=en|access-date=24 July 2020}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> Before the clash, he said, the militants said they knew they would perish and that his house would be damaged, and that they sought forgiveness.<ref name=":2" /> They asked him to leave his house with his family as government troops surrounded them.<ref name=":2" /> The militants, belonging to [[Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind|Ansaar Ghazwat-ul-Hind]], had been fleeing after an unsuccessful attempt on [[Bharatiya Janata Party|BJP]] leader Muhammad Anwar Khan's life.

In the blaze, he lost around 800 pages of his poetry written over 30 years.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /> Among the losses are volumes he had titled ''Najam-e-Naat'', ''Mankabaat-e-Awliya.''<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|date=2 November 2018|title=Madhosh Balhami writes couplets of pain after losing his home and poetry of 30 years|url=https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/kashmir/madhosh-balhami-writes-couplets-of-pain-after-losing-his-home-and-poetry-of-30-years/|access-date=24 July 2020|website=Greater Kashmir|language=en-US}}</ref> He said the rest could have easily formed some six volumes.<ref name=":3" /> One in five of his poems could be recovered from his friends.<ref name=":3" /> He noted that "losing my ''jannat'' (paradise), my world which was my poetry and library, has left a huge scar on my psyche."<ref name=":3" /> At the site of his burned-down house, he recited:<ref name=":1" />
{{Verse translation|Mye wann’te’ kyah khata korum, haq panun mangum agar
Wechaa’n Wechaa’n khand’er banouthan, yi swarg hyu shehar|Tell me what crime I commit if I demanded my rights
In a flash of moment this paradise-like city was reduced to rubble|italicsoff=n|lang=ur}}

He has since built a one-storey house with financial help from relatives and neighbors in his village.<ref name=":3" />

== Imprisonment ==
He ran for election to the assembly on behalf of the [[Muslim United Front]] "to bring about ''tabdili'' (change)" in 1987 but lost.<ref name=":0" /> His run for election and his elegiac practice began a series of arrests by the Indian government.<ref name=":0" />

In 1991, the day after his elegy at the funeral of Haider Ali, a Hizb-ul-Mimineen militant from Balhami's own village, he was taken by the Indian army to a camp in [[Khrew]]. Accused as being a militant sympathizer, the army demanded the location of militants and their weapons.<ref name=":4" /> At his refusal to oblige, he was kept in solitary confinement and tortured.<ref name=":4" /> He was transferred to [[Badami Bagh|Badamibagh]] cantonment in [[Srinagar district|Srinagar]] district, a period he calls "the worst time of my life". From there, he was taken to the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC) in Humhama, Srinagar district. Finally given pen and paper, he started writing and reciting poems to his fellow inmates, most of them captured militants. They had mixed reactions to his work, liking his pro-freedom message but not his questioning of their violent methods.<ref name=":4" /> At one point two boys told him he was put on a hit-list for "discouraging our rank-and-file." However, when Balhami sought out two senior [[Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front|Jammu and Kashmir Libration Front]] members, they reassured him no harm would come to a poet speaking his mind. He resumed his writing and recitation to fellow inmates after that, though he still heard resistance from them about his choice of subjects, such as wanting the return of the [[Kashmiri Pandit|Kashmiri Pundits]].<ref name=":4" /> He spent 11 months in the JIC in Humhama and was allowed to take his writings with him when he was released. Recalling his experience, he says "the sixteen months in jail helped me mature as a poet. I was now critical of everyone including militants. ... I was less emotional as a poet now."<ref name=":4" />

In the middle of 1998, he was arrested again, accused of being part of the militant insurgency, and taken to Cargo in Srinagar.<ref name=":4" /> He was beaten at least twice a day for the next 25 days.<ref name=":4" /> Then, he was taken to Kathua for nine months and then to Srinagar and Kot Bhalwal in [[Jammu Division|Jammu]].<ref name=":4" /> After Cargo, he was allowed to write and found an audience for his readings, especially during his imprisonment in Jammu's jails.<ref name=":4" /> Balhami spent a total of four years in confinement this time.<ref name=":4" /> In this period, he was offered a job as a press secretary by the politician Agha Syed Hasan, who led the party Anjuman-e-Shari Shiyan, part of the [[All Parties Hurriyat Conference|Hurriyat Conference]]. Balhami held this job from April 2001 to March 2018.<ref name=":4" /> He was approached to compile a book of his work, but he refused, choosing to wait until "a solution emerges" to the ongoing conflict.<ref name=":4" />

== References ==
<references />

== External links ==
* [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAbO64MdG7dSBPTjuSRSbsA Documentary ''Madhosh Balhami: The Poet of Perseverance'' on YouTube]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balhami, Madhosh}}
[[Category:Kashmiri poets]]
[[Category:Urdu-language poets]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1966 births]]
[[Category:Writers from Srinagar]]

Madhosh Balhami - Revision history

NAMAN.GAUBA007 at 12:29, 19 April 2026